Ask Me Help Desk - Between a rock and hard place

Ok not really sure where to start other then some basics.

Im 21 going on 22 and about to be a senior in college. My girlfriend of a year and a half and I just broke up / break not really sure what to call it.

To start things off the summer portions of our relationship for the first year were spent with her in Alabama and myself in Kentucky. We talked on the phone pretty much every day for he 3 months that we were out of school and everything went well. We got back to school and things went smoothly. This April I made a big selfish mistake. I was admittedly somewhat drunk one weekend and sent one of my ex's some text messages. They were inappropriate in nature and stupid of me to do. My girlfriend got a hold of my phone and happened to stumble across them. This almost led to a break up then but we were able to patch things up. However, as the summer started things were a little bit rocky from the get go. She stayed at her apartment this summer which is a few miles from our colleges and I live about an hour away spending the summer with my parents. We both have pretty busy schedules, I play baseball for my college and have that in the summer and she is involved in a few summer classes. When Sunday night came along I could just tell she wasn't herself. She didn't seem as chipper and outgoing as usual, I asked her repeated what was wrong and she responded nothing but as usual I knew better. I hung up for a few minutes to get some stuff done and texted her afterward what was wrong and that I think we needed to talk about it.

This whole talk precipitated into a discussion where she feels that last summer the distance made us stronger, this summer some rockiness and trust issues on her part have made it seem as if we have gotten more distant. I am scared to death of losing her, I really feel as if she is the one. I was actually hoping to have the discussion of after college if we so choose do we try and stay close to one another and continue things there on a more serious level. (I'll be attending a grad school and she is undecided atm) After calling her yesterday expressing my displeasure a bit more sensibly and such I mentioned to her that if she could promise me 1 thing its to be honest with me and tell me if the relationship is done during this break. She responded that its not really a break so much as a sinking ship... this really effected me.

I have done nothing but think all day and I can see where she is coming from. The time apart this summer has not been as smooth as last summer however the time we spend together is always pleasant... the issues we have right now don't rear their heads when we are together face to face.

I currently have plans of going down unexpected to talk things over with her in person... something nice, I have a letter with everything I'm feeling written down, am ordering flowers, and taking her out to lunch and hopefully cooking her dinner.

Is this such a terrible idea... I feel like this would help to show that I have my priorities in line which seems to be an issue for her atm. Losing her would crush me and she still says that she loves me but she needs alone time... I'm terrible with alone time by the way -- it worries me, I don't want us to grow further away... she's the one I know it.

Is this such a bad plan for later in the week (Thursday-Friday) with the breakup happening on Sunday night. Is this relationship salvageable with work on her and especially my part? I know for a fact I'm willing to take some of the necessary steps toward a better future together if possible.

When a girl asks for space or "alone" time you give it to them. No surprises, no letters, dinner or anything. The surprise should be that she will get EXACTLY what she asked for and that you can respect her wishes...

Give it time, focus on your school and baseball efforts and see where this goes. Let her come to you, as that is the true testiment to whether this is over.

I would cancel your plans to surprise visit her. She asked for alone time and as a response you're going to just show up at her door? That might make things worse.

When she indicates that your relationship is a "sinking ship" that pretty much paints a vivid picture.

I know you get nervous giving her alone time, but maybe that's what you need to show her? When you mentioned you don't like alone time, that led me to believe you might be smothering her a bit. Just an assumption on my part, but this smothering leads to disaster.

Unless she has voiced some concerns about your relationship beyond this "alone time", visiting her would be bad.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jmooney527

I would cancel your plans to surprise visit her. She asked for alone time and as a response you're going to just show up at her door? That might make things worse.

When she indicates that your relationship is a "sinking ship" that pretty much paints a vivid picture.

I know you get nervous giving her alone time, but maybe that's what you need to show her? When you mentioned you don't like alone time, that led me to believe you might be smothering her a bit. Just an assumption on my part, but this smothering leads to disaster.

Unless she has voiced some concerns about your relationship beyond this "alone time", visiting her would be bad.

Looking at things I have to agree. My only issue with the situation as we speak is that I still have a lot of things that I'd like to say to her and it doesn't seem like she is willing to even give me remotely the time of day to a lot of extents. She has done noting but make plans with some of her friends in town. Granted I am not angry that she is doing so quite the opposite in our relationship we always kind of had this idea where there is us and there is our friends and we don't always have to be together yada yada yada so on and so forth. It was very amicable in this regard. We both understood that the other liked to see their friends and such as well and that it wasn't a bad thing if we weren't together every second of the day. However it's really eating at me with the whole situation, when the ordeal first started Sunday night we agreed we could still talk. Which in many ways should have been the 1st red flag and first batch of mixed signals. Rather then go "surprise her" I called her today to try and see if she would allow a meeting today and her response was no. I'll respect that so on and so forth and she said that she needed at least a week without the constant contact.

My real questions now are that now that I have had time to think about our issued I've found a lot out about things that I have done that could stand to change for our relationship sake that I feel like she needs to hear outside of the crazy mixed up world that is the night of the "break up conversation". Am I so wrong with wanting to tell her these things before leaving everything out to dry. I agreed with her today that I just needed to talk to her once about this and get a lot off my chest because I feel like some of it needs to be said, she agreed and has said that it. I have told her today in an exact quote " This is the last text you will get from me until tomorrow when we talk I can respect your wishes , it's just I have things that I need to say to you before this loss of contact, I'm sure you can understand that and she responded with "Thank you. We'll talk more tomorrow, OK?"

However today as us crazy ex-boyfriends and girlfriends usually do I was looking at her Facebook, some old picture etc.. No wall posts nothing of that nature and I see her statues says something about her phone being broken beyond repair and that she's going to need a new one. Her mom that makes a post that more or less says How frustrating. Of course this way Mikey can't call you.

This has me more confused then ever, am I getting mixed signals here and she really has no intentions of talking to me tomorrow what-so-ever, or what's the scoop here.

Also, should I take this post on the Facebook with a grain of salt as well or do we really think its worth it's weight in water.

The reasons for her needing the lack of contact by the way is because it "makes things too hard".

In my mind her keeping herself pretty occupied the last few days, and this statement lead me to think there are still a lot of feelings there. But perhaps I am really over analyzing the situation for more then it is.

Yes, you are overanalyzing. You are still clinging on to false hope. In my opinion, I don't think there is anything you can do or say to get her to come back to you. She is making it clear that she wants to distance herself from you, and I'm not quite sure what you're expecting when you "get everything off your chest". You are going to pour your heart out and she will stomp all over it. Just a prediction though.

I would suggest reading older posts on here that are similar to yours... many of them post updates about how they did the same things you are planning on doing, and what happened. Maybe you should look around for some of those?

Quote:

Originally Posted by jmooney527

Yes, you are overanalyzing. You are still clinging on to false hope. In my personal opinion, I don't think there is anything you can do or say to get her to come back to you. She is making it clear that she wants to distance herself from you, and I'm not quite sure what you're expecting when you "get everything off your chest". You are going to pour your heart out and she will stomp all over it. Just a prediction though.

I would suggest reading older posts on here that are similar to yours... many of them post updates about how they did the same things you are planning on doing, and what happened. Maybe you should look around for some of those?

It's actually not so much of a pouring the heart out I love you and I care for you thing as much as it is addressing the issues that have been brought up. Thinking back on it I don't want her to come back to be out of pity or spite rather I'd have it occur because it's what's best.

My topics of conversation tonight are more or less me addressing the issues she's had with the distance over the summer, and the issue she has had with where my priorities are. It's not so much that she isn't a priotirty to me, it's that I agree now after looking back on things that she was in many ways right, and addressing ways that it can get better.

More or less what I'm hoping is that over time, with this talk, some space, and a few weeks down the line she will see that I in fact do have my priorities in the right place once again.

Although I don't agree with what you are going to do, I wish you the best of luck. Keep a clear head and remind yourself of what you want in all of this.

Keep us posted on how things turn out as well. Best of luck!

Quote:

Originally Posted by jmooney527

Although I don't agree with what you are going to do, I wish you the best of luck. Keep a clear head and remind yourself of what you want in all of this.

Keep us posted on how things turn out as well. Best of luck!

Will do, I actually think I missed the detail of the priorities which is another major reason for me wanting to talk to her etc. A major issue for her is she feels that she is not high enough in my priorities list. As stupid as it sounds I can definitely see where this idea came from. All along she was right there at / near the top of the list with baseball, however I can easily see how this summer it could have been mistaken.

As I stated above my hope is that I can show her over time that I can make her a priority and then try and rebuild the relationship that is currently lost.

Try to remember that YOU are a priority too. You need to first take care of yourself before you can take care of others. Boyfriends/girlfriends shouldn't be our FIRST priority, but they should be up there somewhere. You should come first, otherwise you are a detriment not only yourself but the relationship as a whole in turn. Many of times we get lost in our significant others and it negatively affects our own lives... which then negatively affects the relationship. You can't be happy in a relationship if you yourself are not happy ;)

Make sure you wouldn't be giving up too much to be with this other person. Like I said, it's not only about her, it's about you as well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jmooney527

Try to remember that YOU are a priority too. You need to first take care of yourself before you can take care of others. Boyfriends/girlfriends shouldn't be our FIRST priority, but they should be up there somewhere. You should come first, otherwise you are a detriment not only yourself but the relationship as a whole in turn. Many of times we get lost in our significant others and it negatively affects our own lives... which then negatively affects the relationship. You can't be happy in a relationship if you yourself are not happy ;)

Make sure you wouldn't be giving up too much to be with this other person. Like I said, it's not only about her, it's about you as well.

This is very true, I think that was actually one of our issues, at times she feels I may in fact make myself TOO MUCH of a priority.

I spoke with her tonight and I think it went really well.

At times in our conversation she stressed that she isn't sure if it is 'too late for us". However in many respects all the same however she adamantly states that there are still feelings there. We've agreed to not talk for about a week and that we can still call one another and keep in touch through the summer. We both know that for things to work out best for us in multiple ways, as friends, as lovers, etc. that it is not good for us to quickly kiss and make up so to say. The plan now is to take the rest of the summer apart since the distance etc. has made it somewhat harder on both of us then it needs to be and perhaps address things in the near future when we get back to school. Perhaps try and rekindle things then. She agreed that some things would need to change, 1 of which being where she views herself as a priority. It's not so much that her and baseball at times clash then it is that some other things at times come in the way. We both still agree that there are some strong feelings there, that remain, however at the moment she feels the need to be alone and contemplate... perfectly understandable.

I think there is hope for us it's just going to take some time for us to perhaps find ourselves and for me to prove to her that I can make her the priority that she feels she should be. I also think this will help to solve some of the other issues as well. All in all I think this is doable... I've heard from other friends the fact she is willing to talk to me, still has feelings etc. mean that something is still there which is good.

I'd say right now its about 50 / 50 which I think is good, and I can sleep now knowing I've discussed our issues with her in an environment not so harshly effected by the immediate breakup where we are both thinking more clearly and logically.

Please don't be offended, but this is the classic, 'letting you down gently' scenario.

I'm glad that your talk with her went well, but the advice of the other posters has been great - our lives should not BE our partners, but our partners should BE in our lives - if you know what I mean.

Things will always get in the way of relationships - good relationships are able to stand the ebb and flow of this dynamic, with both partners understanding this and making time to come together when they can.

I think that she's easing you out of her life and am concerned that you feel the need to 'prove' yourself to her in order to retain the relationship. This puts her in a position of power and you on the back foot.

I suspect that distance during the summer holidays will not improve the connection between you, it will create just that - distance. I hope I'm wrong.

I'm not going to argue with you there that is very well possible. I'm satisfied however now knowing I've done everything in my power and said everything that needed to be said to have a hope at a possible future together. I can respect that now, and I know what needs to be done now.

Good luck, hope it works out.